Edgar G Ulmer’s 1934 The Black Cat (Second Sight, £15.99) has nothing to do with Poe’s original tale (Ulmer decided to ditch the planned adaptation in favour of a new story) and the Black Cat of the title is more of a Red Herring. Nevertheless, with its overwhelming morbidity and doom-laden air the movie probably gets closer to the heart of Poe’s obsessions than most others. The first of Universal’s three films teaming Lugosi and Karloff sees them as mortal enemies locked in a deathly embrace going back to World War I: Karloff the architect has built a modernist house on the mass grave of the soldiers he betrayed, embalmed psychologist Lugosi’s wife and married his daughter; now he’s planning to sacrifice a girl in a Black Mass and only barmy Lugosi can stop him.